


Quack

by BarPurple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Floyd the duck, Fluff in the Dark Castle (Once Upon a Time), Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-10-07 21:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17373824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarPurple/pseuds/BarPurple
Summary: Rumple knows everything that is in his castle. At least he thinks he does.





	Quack

**Author's Note:**

> worryinglyinnocent said:  
> One word prompt: The pairing is rumbelle and the word is 'duck'.

Rumple was peckish. The potion he was working on needed three hours and twenty-two minute to brew, so he had plenty of time to stroll down to the kitchen and get his maid to make him a snack. As he ambled down the stairs he mused on the fact that Belle had been a bit odd about him walking into the kitchen lately. He would never admit it to anyone, but the kitchen was Belle’s domain and he respected that. He was of course the master of the castle, but he wasn’t such a beast that he lacked in manners. He would knock on the ever-open kitchen door and wait until Belle granted him entrance. 

Halfway down the stairs to the kitchen he heard an odd sound. He stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it around. No, he couldn’t have heard that, could he? He cocked his head to one side and listened again. Nope, nothing but the sounds of Belle singing to herself and the bubble of pots.

He bounced towards the open kitchen door and clapped his hands together as he said; “I fancy something sweet…”

“QUACK!”

Rumple stumbled and blinked at the table. There was a duck sat on Belle’s kitchen table. 

“What the hell is that?”

Belle turned around from the stove and wiped her hands on the towel tucked into her apron; “That is Floyd, or possibly Floydette, I can’t tell.”

Rumple rubbed his thumbs over his fingers a few times before he asked; “If we’re having duck for dinner tomorrow why have you named it?”

Belle crossed the kitchen at such a speed that Rumple had to reconsider his thought the his maid had no magic. She flapped the towel in his face and huffed at him; “Floyd is not food. Say you are sorry.”

In the face of an irate maid and an angrily quacking duck Rumple found the demanded apology falling from his lips before his brain engaged. Belle gave him a sweet smile and turned back to the stove. After a moment of watching her swaying hips Rumple blinked and cleared his throat.

“Why is there a live duck on the table?”

Belle carried on stirring the pot and only spared him a glance over her shoulder; “I told you that’s Floyd, or Floydette. They are looking after the chicks.”

Rumple opened his mouth and then closed it again. This was making no sense, but considering the sweet smells rising from whatever Belle was stirring he wasn’t going to argue too much with her, so he just asked; “What chicks?”

Belle hummed an off-key tune as she drizzled a ladle of the sweet-smelling sauce from the pan over the cobbler in the bowl in her other hand. Rumple licked his lips. The duck on the table gave a low quack that sounded far to sarcastic, but Rumple ignored it as Belle put the heavenly pudding down in front of him.

“You remember how you said the eggs I cooked were terrible?”

Rumple shrugged as he ran his spoon through the pudding in front of him. Belle rolled her eyes.

“Well, you did say that, and it occurred to me that every egg I have cooked you is from the magic larder. So, I thought I would try real eggs. Hence Floyd here.”

Rumple was confused but the pudding was distracting him, so he just grunted hoping that Belle would explain.

“I bought chicks at the market, so we can have real eggs, eventually. And well Floyd came with the chicks. The merchant told me that Floyd was raised by chickens and I wouldn’t find a better chicken-mama that them.”

Floyd quacked at Rumple and flapped off to a corner of the kitchen. Rumple watch the duck go and saw it land next to a circle of bricks filled with little chicken chicks. Ducks shouldn’t be able to smirk, but Floyd managed it with gusto. Rumple licked his spoon in an attempt to appear unaffected by the cocky duck. When he looked at Belle he accepted that he might not have been as successful as he hoped.

“The duck can stay.”


End file.
